


Haunted

by zeldadestry



Category: La Femme Nikita
Genre: F/M, Quadruple Drabble, Yuletide 2008
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-24
Updated: 2008-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-25 14:26:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/271280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeldadestry/pseuds/zeldadestry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes it feels as if she lives her whole life away from section with Michael’s ghost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Haunted

**Author's Note:**

> written as an extra treat for ainsley in the yuletide 2008 fic exchange  
> 

Sometimes it feels as if she lives her whole life away from section with Michael’s ghost.

If she finds a delicious patisserie she imagines returning with him, standing beside him as they wait in line. She wonders what he might order, how he would like his coffee. Espresso, she guesses, but who knows, now that he’s free? Life after Section, she realized during her time on the house boat, is different than the life that came before. She was a different Nikita then and will be again when she is finally free.

There’s a gallery near her flat, she visits it every month or so, wonders what Michael might think of it, picks her own favorites and wonders which would be his. Will he ever be the real Michael, the essential expression of himself? Probably not. How would he ever explain to Adam the truth about his parents’ marriage? He need not pretend to be a father, he is one. But who, besides herself, could he speak with frankly about his whole history? Even if he wanted to confess, no one would believe it possible.

The truth, Nikita sometimes reflects, is that Valentine ops succeed in large part because of their ability to become a blank canvas, allowing their target to project whatever he or she wants upon them. Michael had played that game so very well. He had helped her survive and even thrive at Section because he had fooled Madeline and Operations for so long. Section allowed no divided loyalties but Michael wore the façade of the company man.

Perhaps that cultivated blankness was why he had sometimes seemed so hesitant and vulnerable when they had been alone together after he had saved her and reversed the Gelman process. He could not pretend, then, and perhaps he had doubted whether she could love him as he was, whoever he actually was. Even now she would never say she knows him rationally, only viscerally.

He leaves notes around, journals. The Ops who sweep his home every other month frequently copy the documents; all files are red flagged for her to peruse at her disposal. Everyone too new to Section to have known Michael must wonder what interest she could possibly have in this unassuming widowed carpenter.

His writings are always intended for her. He lives as she does, imagines the landscape of his life with her at his side.


End file.
